Osomatsu-kun
Osomatsu-kun (おそ松くん) is a gag manga and multimedia franchise by Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro. After the success of Akatsuka's Nama-chan, this helped make his big break into being a popular gag cartoonist. Overview The origin of this series stemmed from the American film Cheaper by the Dozen, after Akatsuka was told by his wife that twin protagonists would be too expected for a gag manga. As the magazine Shonen Sunday had requested a month-long feature of four chapters from him, he drafted an idea about dodecuplet brothers giving their parents a hard time. However, this was quickly reduced to sextuplets, as it would be difficult to fit all the brothers into panels. Osomatsu-kun quickly became popular enough to be extended as a regular feature, and ran even longer than expected for a total of seven years in the magazine. Akatsuka was initially assisted by his wife and Takao Yokoyama, but after Yokoyama had left for another job, Kenichiro Takai requested to help out when Akatsuka was faced with trouble of creating new characters and stories. Takai would be responsible for Iyami, Hatabō, Dekapan, and Dayōn, among other contributions. The new characters would soon "eat the leading role" and compensate for the sextuplets not having variety in story, with Iyami becoming the most popular. Characters For more details, see List of characters in Osomatsu-kun The Sextuplets "Osomatsu, Ichimatsu, Karamatsu, Choromatsu, Todomatsu, Jyushimatsu!" The identical trouble-making children of the Matsuno family. They are lead by the eldest brother Osomatsu. Although they differ in personality, they still tend to act as one and any ways of distinguishing the six fall by the wayside as the series goes on. They become overshadowed by their supporting cast, and may either exist as general mischievous children or outright bullies and antagonist roles to Chibita. Iyami A shady man introduced as a co-worker of the sextuplets' father, but quickly used in a variety of roles (usually as part of a scam). He is known for his pole of "Sheeh!", which he strikes when startled. He becomes more of a main character in the late portion of the Shonen Sunday run and for the entirety of the Shonen King run. Chibita A young boy who can often be seen with his favorite food, a stick of oden. He is cheeky and full of energy, often bullied by the sextuplets and getting revenge on them or being the one to start the trouble. A common setting for him is him being an orphan or in an unfortunate living situation, and he is often the sidekick of Iyami. Serialization See also List of chapters in Osomatsu-kun Original Run *Weekly Shonen Sunday (Shogakukan): Weekly publication from April 15, 1962 (#15) to August 13, 1967 (#33). Monthly/sporadic installments from September 10, 1967 (#37) to May 18, 1969 (#21). *Separate Edition Shonen Sunday: Periodical publications through April 1964 to June 1967, March 1969. *Boys' Life: April to December 1966 *Monthly Shogakukan Book: July 1966 to March 1967 At the start, the manga focused on the sextuplets and the trouble they would make for their parents, as well as the bizarre situations they would occasionally find themselves in. Totoko would be introduced as a girl they all had feelings for, and the boys had to deal with school and other neighborhood issues like a bully. Chibita was a fixture as early as the second chapter, but he was without a consistent design or setting for some time. By 1963, Chibita began to take more of the prominent role as the sextuplets' rival. Iyami was introduced, and gradually began to take more of a role as well. As the years went by, the additional supporting cast members shared plots with the sextuplets more often or the situation would flip around to where they would be more of the protagonists. This was usually the case for Iyami and Chibita, but Hatabō, Dekapan, or Dayōn could also take the given leading role for a story. Akatsuka's Star System would also be utilized at opportune times. As The Genius Bakabon took off in Weekly Shonen Magazine, Shonen Sunday's schedule of -kun changed from its original weekly stories to a monthly format, which would allow Akatsuka and Fujio Pro to have an increased page-count and longer ideas. But by 1969, the sales in the magazine were slipping despite the presence of both Extraordinary Ataro and ''-kun''. Osomatsu-kun would wrap up with a final chapter in #15, as well as the crossover story "Looking at Me Now" in #21. Grade Magazine Serializations Shogakukan's grade school learning magazines would also serialize -kun through 1966 to 1967. At least four are confirmed to have had new stories on a monthly basis, although Fujio Pro assistants such as Kunio Nagatani and Mitsutoshi Furuya were more influential in the story and art for them. They have rarely been reprinted, save for a few of them making it into the Akebono and Kodansha collections. Due to this, complete information on the runs and their stories is difficult to acquire. * Kindergarten: April 1966 to March 1967 * 1st Grade: May 1966 to March 1967 * 2nd Grade: April to December 1966 * 4th Grade: April to July 1966, October 1966 Further related one-shots would also occur in these magazines and others, such as 3rd Grade occasionally offering up a -kun story or 4th Grade having a story titled "Osomatsu-kun in 20 Years" in 1967. But since these have yet to be reprinted, they remain rarities. Reprints of older stories from Shonen Sunday would also be published in the grade magazines' appendix books, giving readers the chance to get a look at chapters they may have missed from the other magazine. The 6th Grade magazine of Shogakukan has been confirmed to have run a feature from 1968 to 1970; however, it can not be ascertained if this was only reprints or if new content by assistants was included. Second Run *Weekly Shonen King (Shonen Gahosha): "New Osomatsu-kun" one-shot published January 23, 1972 (#5). Regular series from March 19, 1972 (#13) to December 24, 1973 (#53). In 1972, Akatsuka restarted Osomatsu-kun at Weekly Shonen King, with a remake of "Chibita the Safe-Cracker" as a one-shot to preview the new run. However, the bulk of the actual revival wound up focused around Iyami and his misadventures, with much darker and cruder humor than before. Iyami would frequently wind up in some sort of misfortune either due to his bad luck or as payback for his actions earlier in a story, and wind up in many unusual romance situations as well. The sextuplets would rarely appear during this version, either relegated to being bystanders that would react to Iyami or only appearing in chapter illustrations and commenting on it being the only part they'd be seen in. The Star System would be utilized more as well, with characters from other manga dropping in as guests in stories and one even being centered around The Police Officer with the Connected Eyes. But the manga would wrap up by the end of 1973, being overshadowed by Akatsuka's other series in this period of time. The -kun characters would briefly re-appear in a Monthly Shonen Jump one-shot in 1976, later titled "The Return of Osomatsu-kun", though a full revival would not be for over another decade. Third Run *Comic BomBom (Kodansha): November 1987 to March 1990. *TV Magazine: February 1988 to January 1990. Separate crossover stories of Bakabon and Osomatsu occurred as an extra feature from May to October 1988; "Osomatsu-kun Bwahaha 4koma Theater" was the follow-up feature. Osomatsu-kun was revived once again as part of the Media mix initiative between Kodansha, Yomiko Advertising, and Fuji TV in preparation for the new anime series. As most of the original Fujio Pro staff had left and Akatsuka himself worked in a more reduced capacity than before, a new drawing chief (Takayoshi Minematsu) was appointed to draw out the manga and be part of the idea meetings. The stories in this period were much shorter and simplistic for the kodomo demographic that Kodansha was aiming for, although they also contained a lot of toilet humor and increased slapstick elements. The intent was for the sextuplets to take back their lead role, although Iyami, Chibita, and the rest of the supporting cast still wound up having significant screentime. Initially, the Comic BomBom serialization had reprints of Shonen Sunday stories bundled with the new ones. The Kodansha magazines of Fun Kindergarten and Otomodachi would also both serialize reprints of the original manga, from March 1988 to January 1990. However, after the end of the second anime adaptation, there was no more need for there to be a manga running. The third run completed in early 1990, though many chapters would not be seen in reprints until the recent eBook edition. Reprints * Blue Hayashido: 5 volumes (1963-1964) * Toho: 4 volumes (1964-1965) * Shogakukan: "Golden Comics: Osomatsu-kun" (1966), "Fujio Akatsuka Masterpiece Selection: Osomatsu-kun" (2005). "Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works: Osomatsu-kun", 34 volumes (reprint of the Kodansha edition), and the two volumes of "The Latest Version of Osomatsu-kun" (2002, 2005 for Comic Park service). * Akebono: "Osomatsu-kun Complete Works", 31 volumes (1968-1975). Cover art by Takao Yokoyama.First edition of the collection was originally 24 volumes, but the serialization of the Shonen King run inspired a re-release with added volumes to cover those stories. The Shonen Jump story and essay of "There's No Wonderful Business Like That of a Gag!" is reprinted at the end of volume 31. * Shiobun: "Osomatsu-kun Masterpiece Collection", 5 volumes (1976) * Asahi Sonorama: "Sun Comics: Osomatsu-kun Masterpieces", 10 volumes (1979) * Kodansha: "Osomatsu-kun", 34 volumes (1988-1989), "Fujio Akatsuka's Laughter Land: Osomatsu-kun", 7 volumes (1988), "The Latest Version of Osomatsu-kun", 2 volumes (1988-1989). The first is a re-bundling of the Akebono volumes minus the extra features, the second were digest-sized volumes made to accompany the second anime release, and the third compiled select chapters of the Comic BomBom run. * Takeshobo: "Osomatsu-kun", 7 volumes (cancelled first edition, 1995), 22 volumes (re-release, 2004-2005). Also publisher of ""Completely Osomatsu-kun: Osomatsu, Ichimatsu, Karamatsu, Choromatsu, Jyushimatsu, Todomatsu" (2016). * eBookJapan: "Osomatsu-kun", 34 volumes (2009). * Akita Shoten: "Cute Osomatsu-kun", 1 volume (2016) * Chikuma: "Osomatsu-kun Best Selection", 1 volume (2016) Media Sonosheets Anime TV Drama Games Spinoff: Osomatsu-san A new anime and media-mix project was announced in 2015, as part of the 80th birthday celebration for Akatsuka. This work would return focus to the sextuplets, but now have them as adults. Overseas Releases One chapter of the -kun manga, "The Garden Guard Sextuplets", was translated into English for a GQ Japan feature in Akatsuka in 2000. Although bilingual tankobon were then produced of Bakabon and Akko-chan, there was no such treatment to be had for -kun. It is claimed that the manga was illegally reproduced and translated into Korean in the 1970s, as part of the way of getting around the "no Japanese imports" ban in South Korea. However, it is difficult to find physical evidence of this version. The 1966 anime is sometimes referred to as "The Young Sextuplets" in older English sources, as is the manga at times. However, it is unknown if Fujio Pro or related companies ever actually offered the series under this title, or if there were any attempts to localize it in such a way. The 1988 anime has to date been localized and broadcast in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spain, India, and South Korea. References External Links * Osomatsu-kun at Koredeiinoda (Japanese) * Osomatsu-kun eBookJapan page (Japanese) * Osomatsu-kun 1988 entry on Studio Pierrot catalog (Japanese). English-translated version available. * Article on Osomatsu-kun by Charles Brubaker, Cartoon Research (English) Category:Gag works Category:Osomatsu-kun